by Kathy Reichs
“See that?” I asked.
“It’s a paintbrush.”
“It’s a cocked-up north arrow.”
“Meaning?”
“Old archaeologist’s trick. If you don’t have an official marker to indicate scale and direction, place something in the shot and point it north.”
“You think this was taken by an archaeologist?”
“Yes.”
“What site?”
“A site with burials.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“Look, this Kessler’s probably a crackpot. Find him and grill him. Or talk to Miriam Ferris.” I flapped a hand at the print. “Maybe she knows why her husband was freaked over this thing.” I slipped off my lab coat. “If he was freaked over the thing.”
Ryan studied the photo for a full minute. Then he looked up and said,
“Think any of your paleo-pals might recognize this?”
“I can make a few calls.”
“Couldn’t hurt.”
At the door Ryan turned and flashed his brows.
“See you later?”
“Wednesday’s my Tai Chi night.”
“Tomorrow?”
“You’re on.”
* * *
The next morning, I spent my first hour in the lab identifying, marking, and inventorying the fragments from Avram Ferris’s head. I wasn’t yet undertaking an in-depth examination, but I was noticing details.
At nine twenty, I returned to my office and phoned Jacob Drum, a colleague at UNC-Charlotte. His voice mail answered. I left a message asking that he return my call.
I’d been with the fragments another hour when the phone rang.
“Hey, Tempe.”
“Hey, Jake.”
“Won’t get above fifty in Charlotte today. Cold up there?”
In winter, southerners delight in querying Canadian weather. In summer, interest plummets.
“It’s cold.” The predicted high was in negative figures.
“Going where the weather suits my clothes.”
“Off to dig?” Jake was a biblical archaeologist who’d been excavating in the Middle East for almost three decades.
“Yes, ma’am. Doing a first-century synagogue. Crew’s set. Got my regulars in Israel, meeting up with a field supervisor in Toronto on Saturday. Just finalizing my own travel arrangements now. Do you have any idea how rare these things are? There are first-century synagogues at Masada and Gamla. That’s about it.”
“Sounds like a terrific opportunity. Listen, I’m glad I caught you. Got a favor to ask.”
“Shoot.”
I described Kessler’s print, leaving out specifics as to how I’d obtained it.
“Pic was shot in Israel?”
“I’m told it came from Israel.”
“It dates to the sixties?”
“October ’63 is written on the back. And some kind of notation. Maybe an address.”
“Pretty vague.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be glad to check it out.”
“I’ll scan the image and send it by email.”
“I’m not optimistic.”
“I appreciate your willingness to take a look.”
“You gotta come dig with us, Tempe. Get back to your archaeological roots.”
“There’s nothing I’d like better, but I can’t take off now.”
“One of these days.”
“One of these days.”
After our call, I hurried to the imaging section, scanned Kessler’s photo, and transferred the .jpg file to the computer in my lab. Then I hurried back, logged on, and transmitted the image to Jake’s inbox at UNCC.
Back to Ferris’s shattered head.
Cranial fractures show tremendous variability in patterning. The successful interpretation of any given pattern rests on an understanding of the biomechanical properties of bone, combined with a knowledge of the intrinsic and extrinsic factors involved in fracture production.
Simple, right? Like quantum physics.
Though bone seems rigid, it actually has a certain amount of elasticity. When subjected to stress, a bone yields and changes shape. When its limits of elastic deformation are exceeded, the bone fails, or fractures.
That’s the biomechanical bit.
In the head, fractures travel the paths of least resistance. These paths are determined by things such as vault curvature, bony buttressing, and sutures, the squiggly junctures between individual bones.
Those are the intrinsic factors.
Extrinsic factors include the size, speed, and angle of the impacting object.
Think of it this way. The skull is a sphere with bumps and curves and gaps. There are predictable ways in which that sphere fails when walloped by an impacting object. Both a .22-caliber bullet and a two-inch pipe are impacting objects. The bullet’s just moving a whole lot faster and striking a smaller area.
You get the idea.
Despite the massive damage, I knew I was seeing an atypical pattern in Ferris’s head. The more I looked, the more uneasy I grew.
I was placing an occipital fragment under the microscope, when the phone rang. It was Jake Drum. This time there was no leisurely “hey.”
“Where did you say you got this photo?”
“I didn’t. It—”
“Who gave it to you?”
“A man named Kessler. But—”
“Do you still have it?”
“Yes.”
“How long will you be in Montreal?”
“I’m leaving for a quick trip to the States on Sunday, but—”
“If I divert to Montreal Saturday, can you show me the original?”
“Yes. Jake—”
“I’ve got to phone the airlines.” His voice was so taut it could have moored the Queen Mary. “In the meantime, hide that print.”
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